


awake

by c_acoethes



Series: one hundred lifetimes [4]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Endgame, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 23:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19239694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c_acoethes/pseuds/c_acoethes
Summary: “Will he ever wake up?” Thor asks on the dawn of the second day. Yellow flecks dance on his skin, unabashed, blissfully unaware of pain and shattered hearts.“Well, I’m no doctor,” Bruce answers quietly as the sun frames his back and lightens it in hues of gold and pink.“But you are, in fact, a doctor. Stark calls youDoctor Banner.”Bruce smiles fondly for a moment, brushes a hand through his messy salt and pepper hair. “I don’t know, Thor. He might never recover.”





	awake

“Will he ever wake up?” Thor asks on the dawn of the second day. Yellow flecks dance on his skin, unabashed, blissfully unaware of pain and shattered hearts.

“Well, I’m no doctor,” Bruce answers quietly as the sun frames his back and lightens it in hues of gold and pink.

“But you are, in fact, a doctor. Stark calls you _Doctor Banner._ ”

Bruce smiles fondly for a moment, brushes a hand through his messy salt and pepper hair. “I don’t know, Thor. He might never recover.”

Thor nods.

_Waiting._

He can do that.

* * *

Thor distantly aware of Valkyrie pouring herself a glass of whatever alcohol she has found during her explorations, his blue eyes fixated on the starless sky.

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair.

New Asgard is at peace, but Thor’s heart rumbles.

Thor misses Loki with the force of a thunderstorm. He misses him like he misses a limb, essential, impossible to replace. He misses his brother fiercely, a void that will never be filled, and he’s exhausted, the type of exhausted that sleep can't fix.

His stomach knots when Valkyrie turns to face him and asks if he is alright.

“I’m fine,” Thor says, and smiles despite himself.

* * *

“Any changes in his condition?” Steve asks.

There it is again, the faint blue fire in Steve’s eyes, hurt and pain and a million different emotions Thor can’t pinpoint.

They all have lost so much, _too damn_ _much_ in this godforsaken war for Infinity Stones _._

Thor shakes his head.

“Nothing yet,” Thor murmurs to the man he fought endless wars with. “But Banner says he could improve anytime. I trust him.” He pauses, takes a deep breath. Steve looks at him still, eyes delving into an abyss of questions. “What about Bucky?”

Steve scratches his chin with an idle finger. “Buck… well. He’s recovering.”

“With you?” Thor adds quickly.

“With me,” Steve smiles, quiet and small as if needed to be kept to its own small world. “With me.”

* * *

Quill and his team visit him on a Thursday.

Once sated and full on good food and laughter, Thor leaves them to rest of their trip and finds himself walking back to Loki’s room where his sleeping body is still recovering.

Gamora trails behind him, the soles of her shoes squeaking a little on the slick floors of his new home. Valkyrie had insisted on removing the rotting parquetry—”new beginnings,” she had said, and Thor hadn’t objected.

“How long did it take you?” Thor asks suddenly, not even turning around.

Asking about what isn’t needed—it’s all too obvious, all too clear already. Every shadow is a memory.

“Three weeks,” Gamora says.

Thor exhales disappointment out of his lungs, his breath rasping in his throat. _By Odin does it feel dry,_ he thinks, shattered porcelain on his lips.

He suppresses tears with an effort.

Loki has been asleep for three months.

* * *

Later that evening, Thor sits in a chair by the end of Loki’s bed and reads to him for a long time, longer than he expected himself to. Tales of Asgard and Jotunheim find their way along his tongue, dipping into Alfheim and Niflheim at times and memories of their childhood making happiness bloom under his skin.

Thor stops, eventually, and glances at his brother.

Loki still isn’t moving, slumber embracing him whole between its invisible arms.

“I wish you were awake,” Thor says with an acute bitterness on his tongue. “All the others—all the others were deep in sleep for a few weeks at most. Why aren’t you awake, brother?”

His hand grips the blanket tightly, teeth gritted in pain.

“Why aren’t you awake?” Thor asks again. Loki cannot answer for the life of him, of course, pushing more agony into Thor’s lungs, more tears behind his eyes.

He wants answers. He wants to understand. He wants nothing more than his brother at hand.

“If it’s another one of your tricks—” he tries to say, but his voice breaks.

Loki has been cruel and so has Thor—maybe the universe is simply giving Thor back the sorrows he has planted in Loki’s heart for years.

His brother, whom he had never cherished enough, whom he had never given enough. It makes his heart leak like a cracked teacup.

Thor pats the empty space on his chest and shushes it, gentle, tiny blue bolts finally seeping back under his fingernails. The beast of grief that threatens to split his skin along the seams finally gives up and goes back to sleep against his ribs.

Thor smiles tiredly at Loki, pats the back of his hand as tears still cling to his cheeks, his vision blurring.

* * *

The following day, Thor starts decorating a room for Loki next to his own. Putting it together is strange. Moving things and furniture makes Thor’s heart ache with nostalgia. Some of the things he could save—and they are so little, so scarce—carry within their core a time and space in which Loki was awake.

Grief is a beast that breathes and devours, and Thor has had enough of it.

Breathing in and out, he pushes the dark wooden desk against the wall before him and sets himself to work on infusing a few pillows with seidr, just in case Loki wakes up. For protection, for warmth, for love, like Frigga taught him.

 _If_ Loki ever wakes up.

The thought makes Thor shiver.

* * *

Later, Thor finds a big enough square of soil to plant sunflowers in the backyard of his new home. It’s so easy for him to close his eyes again for a little while, the warmth of sunshine kissing his cheeks, then opening them back with something akin to the mischievous glory of childhood summer days dancing in them, ethereal and free.

 _Soon_. He has to think of Loki’s coma only as a phase, a moment lost in time that will not last.

It’s just one of the many bullets he will bite while waiting for a ray of light, and that’s alright with him. There is still hope.

The skin of his hands feels raw.

Thor sighs and resolves to dig his fingers in the soil again.

* * *

Sunlight hits Loki’s eyes on the day the sunflowers bloom.

He opens his eyes, looks around, and frowns, hands mechanically reaching out for his throat.

There’s nothing. No trace left of what Thanos did.

Loki coughs, for good measure. There is no more of the ashes that scraped against the insides of his throat in his last moments of consciousness.

He lays quiet for a moment, staring unseeing up at the ceiling. With every breath, his lungs rattle faintly.

It becomes difficult to breathe, so he shifts on the side, curled up in the blankets.

The first thing he sees is poppies, on his left, with their limp necks and unregimented beauty, staring back at him. Loki tries to push away the hysteria trembling up his throat.

This isn’t the ship. This isn’t any of the Nine Realms, because poppies only grow on Earth. He read that somewhere in a book from the library in Asgard, a few centuries ago.

Why would he be back on Earth?

Something heavy crashes to the ground and breaks, bringing Loki back to himself.

He jerks up in bed.

A vase, in pieces—calla lilies spread on the ground, surrounded by water.

Thor.

“Loki?” Thor says, hands trembling, the sight of his brother awake bringing a chill to the very marrow of his bones.

Loki smiles weakly at the half-illumination of Thor’s uncertainty. His eyes close again, but not on the road to a deep slumber, this time. He slips through a flaw in time, breathes.

“Really, Thor?” he says. A gentle taunt, and the warmth, right there, in those words, even if Loki feels brittle, as if any touch could shatter him apart.

Thor steps forward, cautious, and Loki immediately understands how much time has cost his brother.

Slowly, hesitantly, Thor sits down on the bed. He brings up his hand and pushes back Loki’s black hair, tucking it behind an ear and brushing his cheek in the process.

“How long?” Loki asks.

Thor shakes his head, heartbeat drumming in his temple. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, and his hand is an earthquake between Loki’s hair.

“How long?” Loki asks again. He wants— _needs_ —to know.

They sit in silence for a while, a silence marred by soft wind and birds chirping, flashes of sunlight somewhere beyond the large windows in the room.

“Thor,” Loki says, breaking the stillness that has settled upon them. “ _Brother_. How long?”

The words linger in the air. Thor shakes his head again, but Loki squeezes his hand, encouraging him.

“Six months,” Thor eventually chokes out.

Loki tastes dust on his tongue.

He stares at Thor for a while. Something unfurls inside of him, uncurls, breaks free at the mention of how much time has passed.

“And what did you do?” Loki asks in a quiet, strangled voice.

Thor looks to the side, eyes drawn to the floor. “I fought.” He pauses, Loki’s hand still squeezing Thor’s. “I grieved.” He looks up at Loki. “I waited.”

Hardly enough air leaves Loki’s lungs to make a sound. It’s a fight to open his eyes, but when he does, he’s proud.

“It’s over, now,” Loki says as he brushes the hair back from Thor’s forehead to press a kiss there. “You did your fair share of waiting, beloved.”

**Author's Note:**

> written by na_shao.


End file.
